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Texas vs. California, Perry vs. Brown

Behind the ads and the commentary is a serious competition between the states for economic pre-eminence. In that corner, Athens. In this one, Sparta. Each serves as the other’s foil, the Ali to its Frazier, the Moriarty to its Holmes, the red to its blue. Each sees itself as the economic, cultural and political engine of the future.

Over the past decade, Texas has been knocking the feathers out of the competition, adding jobs faster than any other state. That’s one of Mr. Perry’s brags, and it would have been a centerpiece of his 2012 presidential campaign, had he kept that effort alive long enough to need a centerpiece.

Not from Texas? Here’s one argument heard lately in California: Mr. Perry and Texas didn’t create all those jobs. They stole them. When Countrywide Financial (may it rest in peace) moved to Texas from California in 2004, Texas threw $20 million at the company, which in turn promised 7,500 jobs. Even the rosiest spin on that deal failed to add up to the number of jobs in the universe. It just relocated them.

You can put all of the eggs under one chicken, but that does not make that chicken the best egg-layer in the coop. On the other hand, it does make that chicken the one with the most eggs.

Blowback

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They are right about the scalping of jobs. Paying a company to move from one place to another is not the creation of jobs. What matters is what happens after the move. Here California fails at retaining companies and Texas succeeds in retaining them and incentivizing them to make the move, many times without state help.

Competition is theft. HAHAHA! you’ve got to love the People’s Cube. What? The New York Times?

trubble on February 10, 2013 at 8:01 PM

Government agencies creating winners and losers in the marketplace, such as paying them to move with other people’s wealth, as the state itself does not create wealth, is not competition.
So, I do not like the idea of government handing out millions of dollars to companies for anything other than services and products they pay for. I do not like the idea of giving a company a period of lower or no taxes either. I prefer no companies be taxed at all, but if you are going to tax, then the entire competition playground should be even and equal for all entrants.
So yeah, paying a company to move is stealing and is not in fact competition. It is the exact opposite of competition.

The thing is, California has no one to blame but California on the oil boom front — the state’s Central Valley has shale formations similar to those in the Eagle Ford and Permian Basin regions of Texas, but the environmentalist lobby in the state blocks the expansion of any drilling activity, and the jobs and income those would bring.

What California really wants is for Texans to be as dumb as their voters, and toss out all their elected officials in favor of big government, anti-fracking loons who would turn it into a mirror image of the Golden State. That’s not happening anytime soon (and even if the Democrats think the demographics are going to give Texas to them a decade from not, it’s hard to picture all those South Texas Hispanic voters with good paying jobs due to the Eagle Ford oil and gas activity suddenly deciding they’re going to elect a bunch of people who’ll fight like the dickens to make sure then lose their jobs in the name of Saving the Earth. Austin voters dependent on UT and public sector jobs, yeah, they think that way, but it’s not going to play well in the oil patch).

So yeah, paying a company to move is stealing and is not in fact competition. It is the exact opposite of competition.

astonerii on February 10, 2013 at 8:44 PM

Just because you don’t like the rules, doesn’t make it theft. The simple act of defraying the cost of relocation, or simply providing a friendlier environment for the business to operate is not theft. No one is stopping California from providing a better offer in terms of operating environment. California doesn’t own the business or the jobs associated with it.

Just because you don’t like the rules, doesn’t make it theft. The simple act of defraying the cost of relocation, or simply providing a friendlier environment for the business to operate is not theft. No one is stopping California from providing a better offer in terms of operating environment. California doesn’t own the business or the jobs associated with it.

trubble on February 10, 2013 at 11:06 PM
Not stealing jobs is offering a better operating environment.
Stealing jobs is paying a company to move above and beyond the operating environment you offer everyone else.

I suppose you agree with Obama on things like energy companies like Solyndra huh?